New Testament - WikiHQ

<!--

SOURCE CHECKING FOR PAGE NUMBERS AND COMPLETENESS WAS DONE THROUGH A POINT INDICATED BY A FURTHER NOTE BELOW, FEBRUARY 2016. NOTE, WHILE SOME STANDARDIZATION OF CITATION FORMATS TO THE "CITE BOOK" PRESENTATION WAS PERFORMED, THE WHOLE OF THE ARTICLE REMAINS IN SERIOUS NEED OF ATTENTION IN THIS REGARD.

-->

<!--

If you believe this article violates the NPOV policy please mention the exact sentence in the article you believe to be POV on the talk page.

-->

The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events relating to first-century Christianity. The New Testament's background, the first division of the Christian Bible, has the name of Old Testament, which is based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible; together they are regarded as Sacred Scripture by Christians.

The New Testament is a collection of 27 Christian texts written in Koine Greek by various authors. It includes four gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, epistles attributed to Paul and other authors, and the Book of Revelation. The New Testament canon developed gradually over the first few centuries of Christianity through a complex process of debate, rejection of heretical texts, and recognition of writings deemed apostolic, culminating in the formalization of the 27-book canon by the late 4th century. It has been widely accepted across Christian traditions since Late Antiquity.

Literary analysis suggests many of its texts were written in the mid-to-late first century. There is no scholarly consensus on the date of composition of the latest New Testament text. The earliest surviving New Testament manuscripts date from the late second to early third centuries AD, with the possible exception of Papyrus 52.

The New Testament was transmitted through thousands of manuscripts in various languages and church quotations and contains variants. Textual criticism uses surviving manuscripts to reconstruct the oldest version feasible and to chart the history of the written tradition. It has varied reception among Christians today. It is viewed as a holy scripture alongside Sacred Tradition among Catholics and Orthodox, while evangelicals and some other Protestants view it as the inspired word of God without tradition.

Etymology

The word testament

The word testament in the expression "New Testament" refers to a Christian new covenant that Christians believe completes or fulfils the Mosaic covenant (the Jewish covenant) that Yahweh (the God of Israel) made with the people of Israel on Mount Sinai through Moses, described in the books of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. While Christianity traditionally even claims this Christian new covenant as being prophesied in the Jewish Bible's Book of Jeremiah, Judaism traditionally disagrees:

The word covenant means 'agreement' (from Latin 'to agree', literally 'to come together'): the use of the word testament, which describes the different idea of written instructions for inheritance after death, to refer to the covenant with Israel in the Old Testament, is foreign to the original Hebrew word () describing it, which only means 'alliance, covenant, pact' and never 'inheritance instructions after death'. This use comes from the transcription of Latin testamentum 'will (left after death)', a literal translation of Greek () 'will (left after death)', which is the word used to translate Hebrew in the Septuagint.

The choice of this word , by the Jewish translators of the Septuagint in Alexandria in the 3rd and 2nd century BC, has been understood in Christian theology to imply a reinterpreted view of the Old Testament covenant with Israel as possessing characteristics of a 'will left after death' (the death of Jesus) and has generated considerable attention from biblical scholars and theologians: in contrast to the Jewish usage where was the usual Hebrew word used to refer to pacts, alliances and covenants in general, like a common pact between two individuals, and to the one between God and Israel in particular, in the Greek world was virtually never used to refer to an alliance or covenant (one exception is noted in a passage from Aristophanes) Irenaeus uses the phrase New Testament several times, but does not use it in reference to any written text.

And Tertullian continues later in the book, writing:

By the 4th century, the existence—even if not the exact contents—of both an Old and New Testament had been established. Lactantius, a 3rd–4th century Christian author wrote in his early-4th-century Latin Institutiones Divinae (Divine Institutes):

Eusebius describes the collection of Christian writings as "covenanted" (ἐνδιαθήκη) books in Hist. Eccl. 3.3.1–7; 3.25.3; 5.8.1; 6.25.1.

Books

The Gospels

Each of the four gospels in the New Testament narrates the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth (the gospel of Mark in the original text ends with the empty tomb and has no account of the post-resurrection appearances, but the emptiness of the tomb implies a resurrection). The word "gospel" derives from the Old English gōd-spell (rarely godspel), meaning "good news" or "glad tidings"; its Greek and Hebrew equivalents are euangélion (εὐαγγέλιον) and besorah (בְּשׂוֹרָה), respectively. The gospel was considered the "good news" of the coming Kingdom of God's own Messiah, and the redemption through the life and death of Jesus, the central Christian message.

Starting in the late second century, the four narrative accounts of the life and work of Jesus Christ have been referred to as "The Gospel of ..." or "The Gospel according to ..." followed by the name of the supposed author. The first author to explicitly name the canonical gospels is Irenaeus of Lyon, who promoted the four canonical gospels in his book Against Heresies, written around 180.

The Gospel of Matthew, ascribed to the Apostle Matthew. This gospel begins with a genealogy of Jesus and a story of his birth that includes a visit from magi and a flight into Egypt, and it ends with the commissioning of the disciples by the resurrected Jesus.
The Gospel of Mark, ascribed to Mark the Evangelist. This gospel begins with the preaching of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus and ends with the Ascension of Jesus.
The Gospel of Luke, ascribed to Luke the Evangelist, who was not one of the Twelve Apostles, but was mentioned as a companion of the Apostle Paul and as a physician.
The Gospel of John, ascribed to John the Evangelist. This gospel begins with a philosophical prologue and ends with appearances of the resurrected Jesus. Various non-canonical gospels, such as the so-called "Jewish-Christian Gospels" and the Gospel of Thomas, were also written after the canonical gospels became widely known and used among early Christian communities, advocating for differing theological views, in particular Gnostic ones. In modern scholarship, the Synoptic Gospels are the primary sources for reconstructing Jesus Christ's ministry.

Acts of the Apostles

The Acts of the Apostles is a narrative of the apostles' ministry and activity after Jesus Christ's death and resurrection, from which point it resumes and functions as a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. Examining style, phraseology, and other evidence, modern scholarship generally concludes that Acts and the Gospel of Luke share the same author, referred to as Luke–Acts. Luke–Acts does not name its author. Church tradition identified him as Luke the Evangelist, the companion of Paul, but critical views at the end of the 20th century were evenly divided about whether Luke the physician wrote it due to the many differences between Acts and the authentic Pauline letters, though most scholars still believe the author, whether named Luke or not, met Paul. The most probable date of composition is around 80–90 AD, although some scholars date it significantly later. The earliest witnesses for Luke fall into the Western and the Alexandrian text-types and the dominant view is that the Western text represents a process of deliberate revision in the second century, as the variations seem to form specific patterns.

Epistles

Pauline letters to churches

The Pauline letters are the thirteen New Testament books that present Paul the Apostle as their author. Paul's authorship of six of the letters is disputed. Four are thought by most modern scholars to be pseudepigraphic, i.e., not actually written by Paul even if attributed to him within the letters themselves. Opinion is more divided on the other two disputed letters (2 Thessalonians and Colossians). These letters were written to Christian communities in specific cities or geographical regions, often to address issues faced by that particular community. Prominent themes include the relationship both to broader "pagan" society, to Judaism, and to other Christians.

Epistle to the Romans
First Epistle to the Corinthians
Second Epistle to the Corinthians
Epistle to the Galatians
Epistle to the Ephesians*
Epistle to the Philippians
Epistle to the Colossians*
First Epistle to the Thessalonians
Second Epistle to the Thessalonians*

[Disputed letters are marked with an asterisk (*).]

Pauline letters to persons

The last four Pauline letters in the New Testament are addressed to individual persons. They include the following:

First Epistle to Timothy*
Second Epistle to Timothy*
Epistle to Titus*
Epistle to Philemon

[Disputed letters are marked with an asterisk (*).]

All of the above except for Philemon are known as the Pastoral epistles. They are addressed to individuals charged with pastoral oversight of churches and discuss issues of Christian living, doctrine and leadership. They often address different concerns to those of the preceding epistles. These letters are believed by many to be pseudepigraphic. Some scholars (e.g., Bill Mounce, Ben Witherington, R.C. Sproul) will argue that the letters are genuinely Pauline, or at least written under Paul's supervision.

Hebrews

The Epistle to the Hebrews addresses a Jewish audience who had come to believe that Jesus was the Anointed One (Hebrew: מָשִׁיחַ—transliterated in English as "Moshiach", or "Messiah"; Greek: Χριστός—transliterated in English as "Christos", for "Christ") who was predicted in the writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. The author discusses the superiority of the new covenant and the ministry of Jesus, to the Mosaic Law Covenant and urges the readers in the practical implications of this conviction through the end of the epistle.

The book has been widely accepted by the Christian church as inspired by God and thus authoritative, despite the acknowledgment of uncertainties about who its human author was. Regarding authorship, although the Epistle to the Hebrews does not internally claim to have been written by the Apostle Paul, some similarities in wordings to some of the Pauline Epistles have been noted and inferred. In antiquity, some began to ascribe it to Paul in an attempt to provide the anonymous work an explicit apostolic pedigree.

In the 4th century, Jerome and Augustine of Hippo supported Paul's authorship. The Church largely agreed to include Hebrews as the fourteenth letter of Paul, and affirmed this authorship until the Reformation. The letter to the Hebrews had difficulty in being accepted as part of the Christian canon because of its anonymity. As early as the 3rd century, Origen wrote of the letter, "Men of old have handed it down as Paul's, but who wrote the Epistle God only knows."

Contemporary scholars often reject Pauline authorship for the epistle to the Hebrews, based on its distinctive style and theology, which are considered to set it apart from Paul's writings.

Catholic epistles

The Catholic epistles (or "General epistles") consist of both letters and treatises in the form of letters written to the church at large. The term "catholic" (Greek: καθολική, katholikē), used to describe these letters in the oldest manuscripts containing them, here simply means "general" or "universal" and does not refer to their canonical status among Christian traditions. The authorship of a number of these is disputed.

Epistle of James, written by an author named "James", often identified with James, the brother of Jesus.
First Epistle of Peter, ascribed to the Apostle Peter.
Second Epistle of Peter, ascribed to the Apostle Peter, though widely considered not to have been written by him.
First Epistle of John, ascribed to John the Apostle.
Second Epistle of John, ascribed to John the Apostle.
Third Epistle of John, ascribed to John the Apostle.
Epistle of Jude, written under the name of Jude, the brother of Jesus and James.

Book of Revelation

The final book of the New Testament is the Book of Revelation, also known as the Apocalypse of John. In the New Testament canon, it is considered prophetical or apocalyptic literature. Its authorship has been attributed either to John the Apostle (in which case it is often thought that John the Apostle is John the Evangelist, i.e. author of the Gospel of John) or to another John designated "John of Patmos" after the island where the text says the revelation was received (1:9). Some ascribe the writership date as AD, and others at around 68 AD. The work opens with letters to seven local congregations of Asia Minor (now modern Turkey) and thereafter takes the form of an apocalypse (Greek: ἀποκάλυψις, apokálypsis), a "revealing" of divine prophecy and mysteries, a literary genre popular in ancient Judaism and Christianity.

New Testament canons

{| class="wikitable sortable sticky-header sort-under"

! style="width:124px;"| Books

! style="width:123px; text-align:center;"| Protestant & Restoration tradition

! style="width:123px;"| Roman Catholic tradition

! style="width:123px;"| Eastern Orthodox tradition

! style="width:123px;"| Armenian Apostolic tradition

! style="width:123px;"| Coptic Orthodox tradition

! style="width:123px;"| Orthodox Tewahedo traditions

! style="width:123px;"| Syriac Christian traditions

| colspan="8" style="text-align:center;"| Canonical Gospels

| Matthew || || || || || || ||

| Mark|| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || style="background:#FFA6C9; text-align:center;"| No (early tradition) || || || style="background:#FFA6C9; text-align:center;"| No (early tradition)

| colspan="8" style="text-align:center;"|Catholic Epistles

| James || style="background:#1CAC78; text-align:center;"| Yes

| 1 John|| style="background:#fc9; text-align:center;" | No − inc. in some mss. || || || || ||

| 1 Thessalonians || || || || || || ||

| 2 Thessalonians || || || || || || ||

| Hebrews || style="background:#1CAC78; text-align:center;"| Yes|| || || || || ||

| 1 Timothy || || || || || || ||

| 2 Timothy || || || || || || ||

| Titus || || || || || || ||

| Philemon || || || || || || ||

| colspan="8" style="text-align:center;"| Apocalypse

| Revelation || style="background:#1CAC78; text-align:center;"| Yes and Church Orders

| 1 Clement|| colspan="7" style="background:#FFA6C9; text-align:center;" | No (Codices Alexandrinus and Hierosolymitanus)

| 2 Clement|| || || || || || style="background:#40E0D0; text-align:center;"| Yes (broader canon) ||

| Ethiopic Didescalia (Didesqelya)

Authors

It is considered the books of the New Testament were all or nearly all written by Jewish Christians—that is, Jewish disciples of Christ, who lived in the Roman Empire, and under Roman occupation. The author of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts is frequently thought of as an exception; scholars are divided as to whether he was a Gentile or a Hellenistic Jew. A few scholars identify the author of the Gospel of Mark as probably a Gentile, and similarly for the Gospel of Matthew, though most assert Jewish-Christian authorship.

However, more recently the above understanding has been challenged by the publication of evidence showing only educated elites after the Jewish War would have been capable of producing the prose found in the Gospels.

Gospels

thumb|Evangelist Mathäus und der Engel, by [[Rembrandt, 1661]]

Authorship of the Gospels remains divided among both evangelical and critical scholars. The names of each Gospel stems from church tradition. The gospels are anonymous, as was common for bios of the time; biographies by Plutarch and Suetonius were also originally anonymous as well. The Gospel of John claims to be based on eyewitness testimony from the Disciple whom Jesus loved, but never names this character. The author of Luke-Acts claimed to be a companion of Paul; this claim remains accepted by most scholars. Objections to this viewpoint mainly take the form of the following two interpretations, but also include the claim that Luke-Acts contains differences in theology and historical narrative which are irreconcilable with the authentic letters of Paul the Apostle. Ehrman has argued for a scholarly consensus that many New Testament books were not written by the individuals whose names are attached to them. Scholarly opinion is that names were fixed to the gospels by the mid second century AD. Many scholars believe that none of the gospels were written in the region of Palestine.

Most scholars hold to Marcan priority, which posits that Mark was the first gospel to be written. Many argue the authors of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke used the Gospel of Mark and a hypothetical Q source, though alternative hypotheses that posit the direct use of Matthew by Luke or vice versa without Q are increasing in popularity within scholarship. These three gospels are called the Synoptic Gospels, because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes in exactly the same wording. Scholars agree that the Gospel of John was written last, by using a different tradition and body of testimony. In addition, most scholars agree that the author of Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles. Scholars hold that these books constituted two-halves of a single work, Luke–Acts.

Acts

The same author appears to have written the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, and most refer to them as the Lucan texts. The most direct evidence comes from the prefaces of each book; both were addressed to Theophilus, and the preface to the Acts of the Apostles references "my former book" about the ministry of Jesus. Furthermore, there are linguistic and theological similarities between the two works, suggesting that they have a common author.

<!--

SOURCE CHECKING DONE THROUGH THIS POINT, FEBRUARY 2016. REST OF SOURCES UN-CHECKED AS TO PROVISION OF PAGE NUMBERS, COMPLETENESS OF CITATIONS, ETC. NOTE, WHILE SOME STANDARDIZATION OF CITATION FORMATS TO THE "CITE BOOK" PRESENTATION WAS PERFORMED, BOTH THE FOREGOING AND FOLLOWING ARE IN SERIOUS NEED OF ATTENTION IN THIS REGARD.

-->

Pauline epistles

thumb|Saint Paul Writing His Epistles by [[Valentin de Boulogne (c. 1618–1620). Most scholars think Paul actually dictated his letters to a secretary.]]

The Pauline epistles are the thirteen books in the New Testament traditionally attributed to Paul of Tarsus. Seven letters are generally classified as "undisputed", expressing contemporary scholarly near consensus that they are the work of Paul: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon. Six additional letters bearing Paul's name do not currently enjoy the same academic consensus: Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus.

The anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews is, despite unlikely Pauline authorship, often functionally grouped with these thirteen to form a corpus of fourteen "Pauline" epistles.

While many scholars uphold the traditional view, some question whether the first three, called the "Deutero-Pauline Epistles", are authentic letters of Paul. As for the latter three, the "Pastoral epistles", some scholars uphold the traditional view of these as the genuine writings of the Apostle Paul; most regard them as pseudepigrapha.

One might refer to the Epistle to the Laodiceans and the Third Epistle to the Corinthians as examples of works identified as pseudonymous. Since the early centuries of the church, there has been debate concerning the authorship of the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews, and contemporary scholars generally reject Pauline authorship.

The epistles all share common themes, emphasis, vocabulary and style; they exhibit a uniformity of doctrine concerning the Mosaic Law, Jesus, faith, and various other issues. All of these letters easily fit into the chronology of Paul's journeys depicted in Acts of the Apostles.

Other epistles

The author of the Epistle of James identifies himself in the opening verse as "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ". From the middle of the 3rd century, patristic authors cited the Epistle as written by James the Just. Ancient and modern scholars have always been divided on the issue of authorship. Many consider the epistle to be written in the late 1st or early 2nd centuries.

The author of the First Epistle of Peter identifies himself in the opening verse as "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ", and the view that the epistle was written by St. Peter is attested to by a number of Church Fathers: Irenaeus (140–203), Tertullian (150–222), Clement of Alexandria (155–215) and Origen of Alexandria (185–253). Unlike The Second Epistle of Peter, the authorship of which was debated in antiquity, there was little debate about Peter's authorship of this first epistle until the 18th century. Although 2 Peter internally purports to be a work of the apostle, many biblical scholars have concluded that Peter is not the author. For an early date and (usually) for a defense of the Apostle Peter's authorship see Kruger, Zahn, Spitta, Bigg, and Green.

The Epistle of Jude title is written as follows: "Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James". The debate has continued over the author's identity as the apostle, the brother of Jesus, both, or neither.

Johannine works

The Gospel of John, the three Johannine epistles, and the Book of Revelation, exhibit marked similarities, although more so between the gospel and the epistles (especially the gospel and 1 John) than between those and Revelation. Most scholars therefore treat the five as a single corpus of Johannine literature, albeit not from the same author.

Christian tradition identifies John the Apostle with John the Evangelist, the supposed author of the Gospel of John. The majority of scholars interpret John 21:24 as claiming the beloved disciple was the author of the gospel, though others interpret it to mean he was source of its traditions. Scholars such as Bart Ehrman have speculated that John 21 was an addition by either the author of chapters 1-20 or a redactor, but no manuscript evidence for this assertion has been discovered, and a growing number views it as part of the earliest text. The author may also claim to be a witness in 1:14 and 19:35.

20th century scholarship viewed John as a communal work written in stages, but recent scholarship tends to view the gospel as the product of a single author and are less interested in theories about hypothetical editions or sources of the gospel. John's usage of Mark is well in line with the rewriting methods used by Jewish authors, and the patterns of variation in the gospels are typical of ancient biographies about actual people and history.

The author of the Book of Revelation identifies himself as "John". and states that he was on Patmos when he received his first vision. As a result, the author is sometimes referred to as John of Patmos. The author has traditionally been identified with John the Apostle to whom the Gospel and the epistles of John were attributed. It was believed that he was exiled to the island of Patmos during the reign of Domitian, and wrote Revelation there. Justin Martyr (c. 100–165 AD) who was acquainted with Polycarp, who had been mentored by John, makes a possible allusion to this book, and credits John as the source. Irenaeus (c. 115–202) assumes it as a conceded point. According to the Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, modern scholars are divided between the apostolic view and several alternative hypotheses put forth in the last hundred years or so. Ben Witherington points out that linguistic evidence makes it unlikely that the books share the same author.

Dating the New Testament

There is no scholarly consensus on the date of composition of the latest New Testament texts. John A. T. Robinson, Dan Wallace, William F. Albright, Maurice Casey, and James Crossley all dated many or all of the books of the New Testament before 70 AD. Jonathan Bernier's recent argument for early dates has enjoyed a positive reception, with endorsements from Chris Keith and Anders Runesson, among others. Many other scholars, such as Bart D. Ehrman and Stephen L. Harris, date some New Testament texts much later than this; Richard Pervo dated Luke–Acts to , Markus Bockmuehl finds this structure of lifetime memory in various early Christian traditions.

External evidence

The earliest manuscripts of New Testament books date from the late second to early third centuries (although see Papyrus 52 for a possible exception).

Internal evidence

Literary analysis of the New Testament texts themselves can be used to date many of the books of the New Testament to the mid-to-late first century. The earliest works of the New Testament are the letters of the Apostle Paul. It can be determined that 1 Thessalonians is likely the earliest of these letters, written around 52 AD.

Language

The major languages spoken by both Jews and Greeks in the Holy Land at the time of Jesus were Aramaic and Koine Greek, and also a colloquial dialect of Mishnaic Hebrew. It is generally agreed that the historical Jesus primarily spoke Aramaic, perhaps also some Hebrew and Greek. The books that would form the New Testament were written in the Koine Greek language.

As Christianity spread, these books were translated into other languages such as Latin, Syriac, and Coptic. Some of the Church Fathers imply or claim that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, and then soon after was written in Koine Greek. Scholars have proposed various explanations for this assertion given that Matthew was written in Greek and is not a translation: one theory is that Matthew himself produced a Semitic work and secondly Greek recension; Josephus also claimed to write a translation of an Aramaic version of The Jewish War, though both the extant Gospel of Matthew and the War are not translations. Another is that others translated Matthew into Greek rather freely. Another is that Papias simply means "Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ" as a Hebrew style of Greek.

Style

The style of Koine Greek in which the New Testament is written differs from the general Koine Greek used by Greek writers of the same era, a difference that some scholars have explained by the fact that the authors of the New Testament, nearly all Jews and deeply familiar with the Septuagint, wrote in a Jewish-Greek dialect strongly influenced by Aramaic and Hebrew (see Jewish Koine Greek, related to the Greek of the Septuagint). But other scholars say that this view is arrived at by comparing the linguistic style of the New Testament to the preserved writings of the literary men of the era, who imitated the style of the great Attic texts and as a result did not reflect the everyday spoken language, so that this difference in style could be explained by the New Testament being written, unlike other preserved literary material of the era, in the Koine Greek spoken in everyday life, in order to appeal to the common people, a style which has also been found in contemporary non-Jewish texts such as private letters, receipts and petitions discovered in Egypt (where the dry air has preserved these documents which, as everyday material not deemed of literary importance, had not been copied by subsequent generations).

Development of the New Testament canon

The process of canonization of the New Testament was complex and lengthy. In the initial centuries of early Christianity, there were many books widely considered by the church to be inspired, but there was no single formally recognized New Testament canon. The process was characterized by a compilation of books that apostolic tradition considered authoritative in worship and teaching, relevant to the historical situations in which they lived, and consonant with the Old Testament. Writings attributed to the apostles circulated among the earliest Christian communities and the Pauline epistles were circulating, perhaps in collected forms, by the end of the 1st century AD.

One of the earliest attempts at solidifying a canon was made by Marcion, AD, who accepted only a modified version of Luke (the Gospel of Marcion) and ten of Paul's letters, while rejecting the Old Testament entirely. His canon was largely rejected by other groups of Christians, notably the proto-orthodox Christians, as was his theology, Marcionism. Adolf von Harnack, John Knox, and David Trobisch, Irenaeus and Tertullian held the epistles of Paul to be divinely inspired "scripture". Other books were held in high esteem but were gradually relegated to the status of New Testament apocrypha. Justin Martyr, in the mid 2nd century, mentions "memoirs of the apostles" as being read on Sunday alongside the "writings of the prophets".

The Muratorian fragment, dated at between 170 and as late as the end of the 4th century (according to the Anchor Bible Dictionary), may be the earliest known New Testament canon attributed to mainstream Christianity. It is similar, but not identical, to the modern New Testament canon.

The oldest clear endorsement of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John being the only legitimate gospels was written AD. A four gospel canon (the Tetramorph) was asserted by Irenaeus, who refers to it directly in his polemic Against Heresies: